


pecking order

by theformerone



Series: the deadliest girl in the whole wide world [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hyuuga lore, Pre-Warring Clans Era, Snake Clan War, Snake Clans, Warring Clans Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-21 01:56:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18135512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theformerone/pseuds/theformerone
Summary: Hinata changes her hair. People notice.





	pecking order

For shinobi, clothing was a subtle art of war. Your appearance was as good as any indication of your strength, your area of expertise, or your total lack of depth in any given situation. General chuunin and jounin uniforms, they only helped you melt into your natural background; tending your defenses. But tokubetsu-jounin, or shinobi of esteemed skill who dressed outside of the standard uniforms? Those ones were generally the ones you needed to worry about. And the weirder the accessory, the more dangerous your opponent. 

The Inuzuka know this, and other than being part of their religion, have used their facial markings to denote the pecking order in the clan. The Nara had once tattooed themselves in secret, so they would know by touching each other who was trueblooded, and who could have been a spy. Shinobi who left their facial mutilations free of cosmetics - men like Ibiki Morino know this, too. In old Uzushio, the hair decoration a shinobi wore indicated their clan and their station within it. 

For the Hyuuga, their declaration of power is their hair. It was a custom that had been borrowed by the Uchiha, who then in their wars shared it with the Senju. By then, it was the fashion for all truly powerful shinobi to wear their hair down to their heels. But it began as a sign of skill with the Byakugan. When a Hyuuga had reached the pinnacle of their training before being sent to war, it was said that their Jūken was so perfect, so fine, that anyone within the range of where their hair fell while they moved, was sure to be dead. 

An instant death range. Imagine; not performing a Hakkeshō Kaiten with such a wide range it can repel all attackers, but one with such a close range that any stutter in your movement could kill them at once. 

The first time Hinata's hair is shorn, she is three. She was what they called, a difficult child, who needed nursemilk even though her mother had returned to active duty. Her father cut one of her forelocks, and the jagged bang fell over her small face, and something whole inside of her saw the slightest jagged scar go through it.

Cutting a young Hyuuga's hair, in their culture, was an open warning to the child to get stronger, and for the clan to harden their hearts against the child's loss, if they should fail. In the old days of war, children whose hair was cut in public either abandoned the clan (and spawned the fetid Uchiha) or they doubled down and worked twice as hard to be accepted. They rarely were, but they were not turned out, which in those days, was better than nothing. 

Hyuuga of the main branch who were cut, sometimes became branch members. That is what was discussed when the Hyuuga heiress had let herself get kidnapped by a Kumo shinobi with half as much wit as he had coin in his purse. Neji was genetically her cousin and her older brother; switching one child for the other at this stage would have caused a minor hiccup, but would have restored Hizashi to honor in his son's eyes after his death. 

But Hiashi was soft in the heart after losing his brother. He could not stand to lose his daughter, too, even if it was to gain his nephew instead. He kept Hinata at his side, but he kept her hair cut short. A sign, even then, that she would never be fit to lead the Hyuuga. Neji and Hanabi, left to grow their hair along with their strength, and Hinata, handicapped by an ancient scorn. 

Whatever weakness Hiashi saw in her, it multiplies and rots there, behind a curtain in her mind. Eventually, the rot fills the girl up, and the girl becomes new. 

* * *

It's when she's bringing flowers to Naruto, after the successful Sasuke Retrieval Mission. Naruto, as bright and beautiful and golden as he always is, somehow seems blue under all that medical tape, and all those bandages. He'd had massive tenketsu burns from using the Kyuubi's chakra. Hinata knew, because a branch cousin knew, because the branch cousins had infiltrated the hospital, because the Hyuuga had the kekkei genkai perfect for medicine. 

So she knows that Naruto is hurting, and that perhaps his hospital room could use some light. She pulls on her jacket, and leaves her apartments in the complex, kicking on her sandals as she prepares to go. She's got enough money in her pocket from Team Eight missions and duo work with Mitarashi-sensei that she can afford a nice bouquet. She even has enough leftover to swing around to get a couple of cup ramens on her way. 

She sees Ino in the flower shop, which is normal, but the girl eyes Hinata differently today. When she rings up the total, she slides a hair tie down her own wrist, and offers it to Hinata. 

"Here," she says with a grin that says she's got the news the whole world wants to hear, "every shinobi with long hair needs em'."

Hinata takes the tie with hesitant fingers, because she doesn't really have long hair. Not by Hyuuga means. Not even by Ino's means. She only has enough to reach her shoulders, and maybe barely even that. She had mentioned cutting her hair to Anko-sensei some time ago, but then a mission had come up and Hinata had missed the haircut. And then she missed the next one after that. And after that. 

Anko-sensei always seemed to take missions when the clan started making noise about her hair growing too long. 

But because Hinata is a nice girl, because she still represents the Hyuuga even though she is not their choice but their shame, she thanks Ino for the tie, and tugs her hair back into a tight ponytail at the base of her neck. She picks up the flowers and she goes. 

In the convenience store, she runs into Rock Lee and Tenten, mulling over which charms might suit Neji's room at the hospital. Lee stumbles on his crutch, and seems surprised to see her, and Tenten's face is razor sharp until she remembers herself, and softens. 

Hinata does falter at that. If anything, she could've sworn that Tenten had seen her as a threat. 

She makes it all the way to Naruto's hospital bed without being interrupted or surprised again. He's sleeping well, still recovering, still puckered and blistered from the Kyuubi's chakra. He really put a dent on himself at the Valley of the End. But he had accomplished his goal. And couldn't Hinata love him for that much?

She sneaks one bright dandelion out of Naruto's bouquet before she leaves, and tucks it into the vase in Neji's room, that one full of flowers brought by other loved ones. She stays by his side  a moment, tasting the air like the snakes have taught her, to know when Tenten and Lee will arrive. She says a prayer to the moon for him and hopes her cousin wakes up.

She manages to get out into the hall and down some ways before a pop of smoke erupts four inches from her face. 

Hinata opens her hands and Sei and Rodan drop onto her palms. The lithe snakes curl over themselves and each other, Sei curling around Hinata's left wrist, and Rodan wrapping around the right.

"Aww," Rodan hisses, caustic as ever, "what a beautiful depiction of familial devotion."

Sei snaps at her brother before curling her small head onto the meat of Hinata's palm. 

"She's doing her duty," Sei says, husky voiced and irritated. "How can you think this is anything but a good thing?"

Rodan rolls his small, glittering eyes. 

"Calm down before you snap her wrist."

And it was true, the snakes had all been especially wound up since the Sound Four showed up and spread Orochimaru's acidic chakra through a great swath of Fire Country. His malice was so deeply imbedded into his little experiments that it gave Anko-sensei migraines just knowing they were in the country. 

The snake clans of Ryūchi Cave were in open war with each other now. Ever since Anko-sensei had first let Orochimaru's blood in the Forest of Death before the Konoha Crush. There hadn't been an especially large chance to worry about it until now.

When the snakes of Kiyohime's line were not in contact with their summoners in the human world, they were candidates for open slaughter. Manda was a dictatorial kind of leader; the only one above his command was the Hakuja Sennin, and he was hidden deep within the cave itself, where no snake tread belly. Manda had already started ordering his kin to slaughter the kin of summoners who were not allied with Orochimaru. 

Sei and Rodan had lost cousins. They had nearly lost their older sister, Mifune, a great pale purple snake with black sclera, to the fighting. She had great scars along her hide now, and one of her horns had been snapped off. Hinata had, had to summon her before she was actually ready to do it, because Anko was up to her elbows in snake guts trying to suture another snake's wound shut. 

Mifune was about a third of her mother's size, but still larger than Hinata. They had taken to one another, these wounded daughters. Sei had seen Mifune get wounded, and she had been rather high strung ever since. 

"I'm alright, Rodan," Hinata murmurs, running the pad of her forefinger down Rodan's skull. She raises her wrist to her lips so she can press a soft kiss on Sei's belly, a sure-fire way to calm the old beast down. "Did sensei say what she needed?" 

"Something about a job," Sei exhales, and loosens her grip on Hinata. "Something outside the village. But we might be having an intruder."

Hinata's eyes narrow immediately. She even tastes him before she sees him. She wishes Sei hadn't given her the hint. Because around the corner, with an orderly at his elbow, comes Uchiha Sasuke. 

He isn't much worse for the wear. He had gotten off light, but had surrendered himself in the end. Just sat down beside Naruto, beside the body he had helped to mutilate, and waited until Konoha shinobi arrived to take them both back. 

All that carnage. For nothing. 

Something in Hinata boils at seeing him. The ancient enmity between the Hyuuga and the Uchiha was already enough to put her off him, but his recent actions against the village, and the  _hint_ that because of his Cursed Mark he'd be joining her as Anko's apprentice made Hinata very keen on snapping her own jaw in half. 

His face scrunches up when he sees her, too. He even goes so far as to look directly at her short ponytail and sneer. When he sees the snakes at her hands, though, his face flashes white, then sallow with rage.

"If you bring those _things_ near me," he snarls, in that trademark way of his, "I'll kill it."

The orderly frowns at him, murmurs, "Uchiha-san," reprovingly, like that will change the behavior. 

Hinata has seen boys like this one. Her cousin was one of them until only very recently. She doesn't feed the bullshit so that boys feel better anymore. Anko-sensei had beaten that out of her a long time ago. It was better to let a boy know directly where you stood. That way, he could never call you crazy. And even if you were crazy, it wouldn't matter. 

Because you had told the truth. 

"If you call these snakes 'things' one more time," she says, voice as light as summer, "I'll kill you."

Sasuke frowns at her, puffs up almost like a cat. He won't fight her here, not in his condition, and not so close to Naruto's room. He had agreed to keeping up perfect behavior, as long as he was allowed to visit Naruto every so often. 

When he disappears around the corner, Hinata lets out a breath and jolts down the hall towards the nearest window. She levels herself out of it, holding chakra in both feet and her right hand as she holds onto the building around it. 

Rodan lets out a hearty laugh.

"You got some big fangs in your mouth, kid," he crows, "picking a fight with your new little brother like that."

The truth of it smarts, but Hinata can't help but preen knowing the snakes will see her as the older hatchling.

"Humans just call that having balls," Sei snips, smiling just enough to let them know her humor's come back. Hinata nuzzles her belly with her nose one more time, to show she recognizes the effort.

"C'mon," Rodan says, "Dumpling has an assignment waiting for you in the Forest of Death."

"Good," Sei quips, "I hope she has a cookbook on how to roast teenage boy. He's lean but he'd make a good stew."

Hinata chuckles under her breath, tucking her forelocks behind her ears before she launches herself off the side of the hospital.

"Oh, goody," she says, smiling as the day takes her; a new shinobi, in her own merit.

 

**Author's Note:**

> only teasing w the naruhina. p sure the final couple for this verse (if it has one) will be a wlw one


End file.
